Leaving Home

Submit a photo and become part of our exhibition

When a loved one is leaving home, we often reach for a camera. Whether it's a family huddled on a train platform in 1920 or a young person waving at the airport departure gates in 2012 – throughout history we have collected these moments of leaving home for posterity. David Monahan's large-scale photographs in the Leaving Dublin exhibition capture the sense of adventure, excitement, hope, sadness and anxiety of those leaving their home country.

Now the Immigration Museum wants you to look into your own family album and share a photograph that captures you or your family's leaving home picture to add to our online exhibition. We are looking for a variety of photos that capture the concept of leaving home, whatever that means to you. The photo can have been taken last year or one hundred years ago, it might show you and your friends at a farewell party or your grandparents standing on the dock in front of a ship.

Kerry Murphy with her ten siblings and parents at Essendon Airport, Australia, before relocating to Papua New Guinea.Source: Kerry Nicholas

Leaving home for Australia, this is where my ancestors the O'Learys and the Gallaghers said farewell to Ireland in the 1800s.Image: Peter ZoellerSource: Joan Santamaria

The Coco family at Bull Wall in Ireland, before departing for Sydney, Australia, in July 2008.Source: Monica Jones

Oscar Mauri (standing far right), the day before boarding the steamship Toscana from Venice to Melbourne, Australia, April 1952.Source: Tatiana Mauri

David Dellar receiving his leaving gift before departing Melbourne for further career opportunities in London. His party in Richmond drew over 100 of his family and friends to say goodbye and wish him luck.Source: Catherine Devery

Guy Thompson's last meal before moving to Australia for study – a calzone pizza from a restaurant in Dublin arranged in the shape of Australia.Source: Guy Thompson

Leaving Dublin for Melbourne in 2007Source: Phil Morrissey

Delores Kenely (in the white hat) with her two sons Pierre and Guido and her immediate family, the day she left Malta to get on the boat for Australia in the 1950s.Source: Mary Richmond

Horace Galea (Delores Kenely’s father) with grandsons Guido and Pierre on the day they left Malta for Australia in the 1950s.Source: Mary Richmond

Flora family on board Guglielmo Marconi, at a stopover in Africa, early May 1968Source: Lana Braithwaite

Welcome party by the local parish for the Robinson Family after leaving Belfast, 1964Source: Peter Henderson

Comedian Lawrence Leung at the farewell/wrap party of his ABC1 TV series Choose Your Own Adventure. “My editors always joked about having to sit through my over-the-top acting, so at the party they ceremoniously handed back to me the ‘ham’ they had to cut out.”Source: Lawrence Leung